Visual Basic® Style Guide, The

What Is Discipline?

Discipline is an ominous word. Perhaps our cultural tendency to equate discipline with punishment causes us to wince at the very thought of doing anything in a disciplined manner. Even my Webster's dictionary lists "punishment" as the first definition of the word. Yet discipline carries so much more significance with it. In this text, I will use another definition of the word: "training that corrects, focuses, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character." This definition is well suited to the programmer. Let us look at the words of this definition in more detail.

Discipline Is Training

Nobody is born with an innate knowledge of various programming languages. Such skills must be learned and require much study, and today's ...